I had the opportunity to attend and listen to four amazing thinkers in the past week. There was a conference titled 'A Transforming World' that featured speakers from different sectors that imagined what the world would be like 10-20-30 years from now. I was enraptured by their remarks and felt like what it might have been like to be at the turn of the previous century when Edison, Bell, Lister and others were helping drive modern innovations for the 20th century.
Usually in the Q and A portion of these sessions, one has to stand up to a microphone and ask a question. As a measure of propriety, one might feel like asking a question or two, and not be a floor-hog as it were. However, in this conference, we were given blackberry like devices so that the moderator could collate and ask the question on our behalf. Thus I felt free to ask questions, and to my delight got my questions, one each, to all four speakers!
Zeke Emanuel - Health Care
Zeke is a professor at the Wharton Business School, my alma mater. He is the brother of the more famous Rahm Emanuel, who is the Mayor of Chicago and was in the Clinton White House. He was an early and staunch supporter of 'Obamacare.' Zeke talked about how the health care system was going to transform in this country. He spoke about new technologies and new services that will come into being.
The most shocking statistic he mentioned, was that he expected 1,000 hospitals to close in the U.S. within this decade (20% of all hospitals) - and did not position is as a bad thing. His point was that hospitals are efficient at certain types of care and inefficient at others. And that the bending of the cost curve, would force the system to allocate its resources better.
Reinventing American Healthcare - Video
My question: I asked Zeke, what could we do as individuals to stave off an emasculating disease such as Alzheimer's
Zeke's answer: Zeke said that three things staved off most diseases, including Alzheimers - a) healthy diet, ii) exercise, including getting plenty of oxygen to the brain and iii) socialization (i.e. not isolating oneself).
JB Straubel - Automotive
When I heard JB, as he was referred to speak, I felt that an entire new generation is stepping in to transform every sector that we are in. JB is CTO at Tesla motors, the maker of fully electric automotive vehicles. They did not retrofit a battery in an existing car - they redesigned the car around the battery.
He literally was fresh off announcing home and commercial batteries. The way JB talked about how Tesla viewed the car industry, how they built a network of charging stations around the country was indeed fascinating.
The most interesting thing that JB said was what they did not expect when they established the charging stations. It was that they started driving local economics of where they set up the charging stations; since they create a new route for vehicles, and every time these cars stopped to charge, they would spend money locally. Thus small towns started vying to get charging stations established near their establishments!
Energy Storage Presentation - JB Straubel
My question: Who are your customers today and who will be your customers tomorrow?
JB's answer: Their home base is California and their current buyers tend to be energy conscious, environmentally aware customers. He believes, as their brand spreads, and the next generation grows up, that the customer base would become naturally much broader.
Andy Sieg - Wealth Management
Andy Sieg's business manages ~$2.5 Trillion in client assets, one of the largest wealth managers in the world. He focused on how advice is transforming in the era of longevity - where people of living decades longer than they did a century ago. He also talked about how the millennials have a completely different expectation of what advice is and how it is delivered.
His main message was the the new investor cares about the impact their assets were having on society as much as the returns they were generating. Thus Impact Investing is both doing well for oneself and doing good for the world at the same time.
Boomers vs Millennial - Video
My question: What impact will robo-advisors have on the traditional wealth management business.
Andy's answer: The delivery of advice in the era of longevity is a complex process. So there is demand on the advisor to add value in new areas such as elder care and long term care. So things that can be automated will be automated. Thus robo-advisors will find a place in the advice generation process, but will be incorporated into the practice rather than replace it.
Ray Kurzweil - Technology
Ray Kurzweil has been in the business of predicting the future for over thirty years and he has been remarkably prescient. He is quite famous for his notions of singularity. In fact, he founded Singularity University on the basis of this idea. He forecasts that humans and technologies will seamlessly integrate into each other in the future.
My earlier post on Ray Kurzweil: Year 2045
Hybrid Thinking - Video
My question: Can human consciousness be replicated?
Ray's answer: The question regarding consciousness is fundamentally the most important question. Indeed all of our morality and moral systems are based on this premise. But given the pace of technological progress, it is only a matter of time that consciousness will be generated from non-carbon based life forms. Artificial self-awareness will indeed happen. What will happen is that as a human species we will learn to accept that, even though we will never quite eliminate the doubts we have about subjective experience being unique and not replicable.
Summary
As one can tell from the line-up of speakers and topics listed above, this was a power-packed day full of descriptions of how the world is tangibly transforming in front of us, what some of the most pre-eminent companies and thinkers are doing about it and what the world will be like in a few decades from now.
Here is my own imagination, on life in the future which I title, 'Gone Fishing:'
Imagine in the future we will choose to live in smaller communities. We won't go to college, and we won't work Nine-to-Five. There won't be large factories spitting out product. There won't be defined careers either. There won't be any mega stores to go to. Neither will there be paper or plastic much around. There won't be paper currency either.
Here, we would be living in a highly inter-connected world, plugging into knowledge and education uniquely tailored to each individual and paced accordingly. Value will be based on unique and new ideas contributed to human understanding and endeavor.
A designer will come up with an idea, it will show up at everyone's home electronically (perhaps even through holograms). And we would pay for the idea and have it locally produced - maybe in your garage or in the village central - and the most of the value would be for the design and not the material or the production.
The information about the earth, its waters, its bio diversity, the map of the universe with its galaxies would all be digitized and be at your fingertips (literally).
You could communicate with anyone anywhere (several years ago, my brother was able to send me a blackberry message from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro!) about what's happening.
In this world, we would be free in the truest sense of the word, to pursue what we each individually like and derive value to the overall network of knowledge contributors (not workers) around the globe and a silent, virtual exchange of digital currency.
Lest this be confused for a 60s commune, this is not 'give up everything' idealism. Rather a convergence of amazing knowledge, scientific progress and technology that will allow us to jump in headlong into human affairs, but not be caught as a cog in a giant wheel.
In the future, 'Gone Fishing,' might not necessarily mean absconding from your responsibilities. It might mean you are doing the most natural thing in the world. While out there, you by the brook, fishing rod out, with a gentle breeze swishing by and your dog Rover lolling in the sun; you might have an Emily Dickinson insight (in tune with, 'I'm nobody! Who are you?'), and oh by the way post it on the future generations' version of FaceBook for friends, family and the general public to react - and they might credit your account should they feel it have value!
Nanotechnology. Computing power. Digitization of information. Private space flights. Mining Asteroids. There is even more!
An ever present caution. One does hope that the Yang, that will accompany this Ying, with bad guys having access to the same technology and knowledge can be kept at bay!
But looking, reading and absorbing these trends, it is pretty clear that we are nearing an apogee in human affairs. Apogee in the sense that we have pushed twentieth century organization, scale manufacturing, global supply chains to its limit and that perhaps now events will start reverting in an evolved sense and headed back to a perigee where things are more localized and customized.
This is going to be fascinating to watch unfold.
Usually in the Q and A portion of these sessions, one has to stand up to a microphone and ask a question. As a measure of propriety, one might feel like asking a question or two, and not be a floor-hog as it were. However, in this conference, we were given blackberry like devices so that the moderator could collate and ask the question on our behalf. Thus I felt free to ask questions, and to my delight got my questions, one each, to all four speakers!
Zeke Emanuel - Health Care
The most shocking statistic he mentioned, was that he expected 1,000 hospitals to close in the U.S. within this decade (20% of all hospitals) - and did not position is as a bad thing. His point was that hospitals are efficient at certain types of care and inefficient at others. And that the bending of the cost curve, would force the system to allocate its resources better.
Reinventing American Healthcare - Video
My question: I asked Zeke, what could we do as individuals to stave off an emasculating disease such as Alzheimer's
Zeke's answer: Zeke said that three things staved off most diseases, including Alzheimers - a) healthy diet, ii) exercise, including getting plenty of oxygen to the brain and iii) socialization (i.e. not isolating oneself).
JB Straubel - Automotive
He literally was fresh off announcing home and commercial batteries. The way JB talked about how Tesla viewed the car industry, how they built a network of charging stations around the country was indeed fascinating.
The most interesting thing that JB said was what they did not expect when they established the charging stations. It was that they started driving local economics of where they set up the charging stations; since they create a new route for vehicles, and every time these cars stopped to charge, they would spend money locally. Thus small towns started vying to get charging stations established near their establishments!
Energy Storage Presentation - JB Straubel
My question: Who are your customers today and who will be your customers tomorrow?
JB's answer: Their home base is California and their current buyers tend to be energy conscious, environmentally aware customers. He believes, as their brand spreads, and the next generation grows up, that the customer base would become naturally much broader.
Andy Sieg - Wealth Management
His main message was the the new investor cares about the impact their assets were having on society as much as the returns they were generating. Thus Impact Investing is both doing well for oneself and doing good for the world at the same time.
Boomers vs Millennial - Video
My question: What impact will robo-advisors have on the traditional wealth management business.
Andy's answer: The delivery of advice in the era of longevity is a complex process. So there is demand on the advisor to add value in new areas such as elder care and long term care. So things that can be automated will be automated. Thus robo-advisors will find a place in the advice generation process, but will be incorporated into the practice rather than replace it.
Ray Kurzweil - Technology
My earlier post on Ray Kurzweil: Year 2045
Hybrid Thinking - Video
My question: Can human consciousness be replicated?
Ray's answer: The question regarding consciousness is fundamentally the most important question. Indeed all of our morality and moral systems are based on this premise. But given the pace of technological progress, it is only a matter of time that consciousness will be generated from non-carbon based life forms. Artificial self-awareness will indeed happen. What will happen is that as a human species we will learn to accept that, even though we will never quite eliminate the doubts we have about subjective experience being unique and not replicable.
Summary
As one can tell from the line-up of speakers and topics listed above, this was a power-packed day full of descriptions of how the world is tangibly transforming in front of us, what some of the most pre-eminent companies and thinkers are doing about it and what the world will be like in a few decades from now.
Imagine in the future we will choose to live in smaller communities. We won't go to college, and we won't work Nine-to-Five. There won't be large factories spitting out product. There won't be defined careers either. There won't be any mega stores to go to. Neither will there be paper or plastic much around. There won't be paper currency either.
Here, we would be living in a highly inter-connected world, plugging into knowledge and education uniquely tailored to each individual and paced accordingly. Value will be based on unique and new ideas contributed to human understanding and endeavor.
A designer will come up with an idea, it will show up at everyone's home electronically (perhaps even through holograms). And we would pay for the idea and have it locally produced - maybe in your garage or in the village central - and the most of the value would be for the design and not the material or the production.
The information about the earth, its waters, its bio diversity, the map of the universe with its galaxies would all be digitized and be at your fingertips (literally).
You could communicate with anyone anywhere (several years ago, my brother was able to send me a blackberry message from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro!) about what's happening.
In this world, we would be free in the truest sense of the word, to pursue what we each individually like and derive value to the overall network of knowledge contributors (not workers) around the globe and a silent, virtual exchange of digital currency.
Lest this be confused for a 60s commune, this is not 'give up everything' idealism. Rather a convergence of amazing knowledge, scientific progress and technology that will allow us to jump in headlong into human affairs, but not be caught as a cog in a giant wheel.
In the future, 'Gone Fishing,' might not necessarily mean absconding from your responsibilities. It might mean you are doing the most natural thing in the world. While out there, you by the brook, fishing rod out, with a gentle breeze swishing by and your dog Rover lolling in the sun; you might have an Emily Dickinson insight (in tune with, 'I'm nobody! Who are you?'), and oh by the way post it on the future generations' version of FaceBook for friends, family and the general public to react - and they might credit your account should they feel it have value!
Nanotechnology. Computing power. Digitization of information. Private space flights. Mining Asteroids. There is even more!
An ever present caution. One does hope that the Yang, that will accompany this Ying, with bad guys having access to the same technology and knowledge can be kept at bay!
But looking, reading and absorbing these trends, it is pretty clear that we are nearing an apogee in human affairs. Apogee in the sense that we have pushed twentieth century organization, scale manufacturing, global supply chains to its limit and that perhaps now events will start reverting in an evolved sense and headed back to a perigee where things are more localized and customized.
This is going to be fascinating to watch unfold.
5 comments:
Interesting! I hope that they are right since the future is unpredictable ...
Nice! You engage in amazing conversations!
Just a statistic - Indians and many Asians tend to get Alzheimer less than Westerners.
This has been attributed to the Turmeric in our diet !!
A natural way of warding off both Parkinson and Alzheimer is Virgin coconut oil (50ml) mixed with a small spoon of turmeric first thing in the morning !!
For those with a history this can do no harm?
Your thought about living in small communities is a harking back to the
times when humanity started out as small communities. Then came
globalization with its much touted benefits, proven dubious later, making
almost everyone's life across the world equally miserable. The exceptions
are those untouched by global life and living a disconnected existence.
Sanskrit speaking villages of Karnataka and the Germanic villages of a few
hundred people come to mind!
Much has been made of the clean revolution due to battery cars. Even the
intelligentsia forget that the batteries charge and the power to charge
batteries is produced by conventional, polluting energy sources. In
countries like India, coal-powered plants will generate the energy required
to charge car batteries. Some underprivileged community may get polluted
more whereas the affluent may enjoy a cleaner existence. The revolution
required is at the source: a lot more of wind and solar energy. I suspect
any battery that has to be plugged in to charge.
I too used to be fascinated with futurists and their work. No more. I’ve come to learn from experience how faulty such forecasting usually is – you know, the whole complexity thing – and that all too often, knowingly or unknowingly, such forecasting is driven by an agenda: philosophic, ideological, personal wealth/power.
Zeke is a perfect example of the technocrat with an ideological/utopian agenda… or he is just very ignorant of economics and human nature. He’s essentially one of the fathers of ObamaCare; the preeminent example of hubris or progressive ideology… which is essentially the same thing. Mitt Romney is the private sector version of this sort of simpleminded technocratic approach to life. Yes, he probably woulda been better than the current technocratic utopian in the White House, but perhaps not much… he bought Zeke hook, line and sinker too.
To give you a feel for what a nasty piece of work I am, my question to Zeke would have been: “Did you really think that a centralized, bureaucratized, heavily-regulated healthcare system requiring fewer, larger and more impersonal hospitals and other healthcare institutions could be anything other than a costly, dehumanizing experience even for those able to get care… and a dystopian nightmare for the underclass who will be totally at the mercy of a rationing system that puts the poor (bronze plans/Medicaid) at the end of the scheduling and access line?”
I suspect though that he’d not answer that one. Which leads one to wonder if some others did ask something similar. So, perhaps a clever way to avoid getting uncomfortable questions. Which is understandable given the failure of his wild-eyed ‘futurism’ unleashed on in the real world.
Oh, and now I don’t like him for another reason… given his prescription for avoiding it, he’s essentially saying that I’m getting Alzheimer’s! ;-)
I do however find Mr. Musk much more to my liking. At least he’s using private money for his experiments, not public money, and then forcing it on everybody through government mandate. I hope his efforts succeed. At least they’re not as crazy as Zeke’s (Rube Goldberg ‘crazy’ is why Zeke needs government force to realize his dreams for the future).
My question(s) for JB would be: “Is it fair to say, as some have, that with Tesla Elon Musk is really in the battery business as he sees the storage of power being a truly transformative technology, and that the car is the mobile version of such next generation batteries and the new product is the stationary version? Second, what do you say to those who worry that Elon is stretching himself too thin if he’s going to be successful in the auto industry as it’s so damn complicated and filled with traps that have killed all new car manufacturing entrants for decades?” Yeah, that one might not have been answered either.
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